Graduate Student Assembly approved

They amass for only about 15 percent of UCF's student population, but one type of student is ready to see some serious changes in how they're regarded in the UCF community.

As of this month, that type of student – the graduate student – could be a step closer to those changes since the Student Government Association Senate passed a constitutional amendment that would add a new article to the constitution.

Sponsored and supported by all of the colleges and other major entities, Constitutional Amendment 43-04 (Constitutional Revision Regarding the Graduate Student Assembly), calls for the creation of a Graduate Student Assembly, a body of students that will represent the interests of non-undergraduate students.

"UCF is a university that's been growing significantly, and it's recently received the classification of a university with very high research based on the Carnegie Foundation, and out of all of the universities that are in that classification, UCF is probably one that is wanting in the representation of graduate students within the student government," recent doctoral graduate Sergio Tafur said.

The amendment will give the assembly the authority to make its own internal administrative code, rules and procedures, as well as control the funds they'll be provided from the Activity and Service Fee budget.

Tafur, a former SGA senator, said he realized the need for a change in 2006 when the Graduate Student Association conducted a survey of graduate students and included questions about SGA.

One of the questions on the survey asked graduate students if they thought the current structure of SGA at UCF needed to adapt to the enormous growth and needs of the graduate student community. Out of the 490 graduate students who responded, about 96 percent of them said yes.

Tafur said he has been working on a solution since the results of that survey.

When senate seats were established solely for the College of Graduate Studies in the Forty-Second Student Senate, Tafur had high hopes for an increased graduate student presence in SGA. However, the Thursday-night senate meetings, which ran four hours or more, and outside work proved too time consuming for most graduate senators.

In addition to time constraints, another reason those involved felt the need for a separate entity in SGA was the differences between undergraduates and graduates.

"The average age of a grad student is 32…and so you can imagine that you don't have nearly as much in common with the undergraduate population, you just have different needs," Bonnie Berry, president of the Graduate Student Association, said. "It just makes sense to have a separate body to represent what graduate students need. This assembly will allow a more focused discussion on the things that graduate students need."

Tafur echoed similar sentiments, citing the fact that most graduate students are of the age where they no longer rely on their parents for financial support and that the situation is often times the opposite.

"I think that one of the things that is not thought of very often is that graduate students many times have families that they provide for even though they're still students," Tafur said.

Legislative, Judicial, and Rules Committee Chair Nick Simons was aware of these differences from the beginning, but skeptical of the graduates' desire for an assembly.

"It's a very big proposal, and it's a large and dramatic change to how we run things in student government," Simons said. "Initially, I was a little bit worried and I was wondering if it was the right thing to do, but after speaking with them and after analyzing the proposal and hearing all of the research and what they had to say, I realized it was the right thing to do."

Simons said he understood where the graduate students were coming from in regard to their difficulties in relating to the undergraduate population.

"The Student Government Association is largely dominated by undergraduates and undergraduate interests, so there's kind of a disconnect right there," Simons said. "I believe that this is important because this gives graduate students the autonomy that they need to meet their own needs."

In addition to support from undergraduate senators, Tafur also received letters from college deans and professors, as well as Deborah German, the vice president for medical affairs and dean of the College of Medicine, and Patricia Bishop, the vice provost and dean for the College of Graduate Studies.

Berry is confident that, with the amount of support they've received, the assembly will help develop a graduate culture and community that many students feel is lacking.

"We really want to help students achieve their academic and professional goals," Berry said. "And we really feel the assembly's the best way to do that."